How do you explain BJJ to people who have never heard of it?

When I tell people that I train Brazillian Jui Jitsu they have no idea what I'm talking about.

They always think that I'm talking about traditional Ju Jitsu. Unfortunately I cannot let this go. I have an uncontrollable urge to explain the difference between BJJ and TJJ.

What baffles them is the Brazillian link, and to be honest it baffles me slightly too.

To the best of my knowledge, the Brazillians (Gracies) didn't actually 'invent' BJJ. They just chose to focus on the ground aspect of Judo becasue Olympic Judo was going to much the other way. IE: no groundwork, just stand up and throws. I normally end up saying that BJJ is really 'old style Judo' rather than a specifically Brazillian art.

Is this an accurate way of describing the Brazillian link, or am I doing them a disservice?

To the best of my knowledge, the Brazillians (Gracies) didn't actually 'invent' BJJ. They just chose to focus on the ground aspect of Judo becasue Olympic Judo was going to much the other way. IE: no groundwork, just stand up and throws. I normally end up saying that BJJ is really 'old style Judo' rather than a specifically Brazillian art.

Is this an accurate way of describing the Brazillian link, or am I doing them a disservice?

From what I've read and seen, the point of contention appears to be exactly who influenced the initial development of BJJ and how much, with competing versions of the history (e.g., Rorion's interpretation versus those who think the contribution of Carlos Gracie has been downplayed).

Then there are the arguments surrounding the judo element, again ruffling feathers due to some people feeling a particular contribution was downplayed. In this case, its judo itself, as some versions of BJJ history don't call Maeda a judoka, instead saying he was a jujitsu guy (e.g., Rorion's old Gracie Jiu Jitsu in Action tapes).

I've frequently had some judoka putting up a comment on my history post (e.g., this) complaining that BJJers don't acknowledge judo's importance to BJJ's development, which I have to say I haven't seen in class.

It seems that rather than BJJ having some kind of problem with judo, its the other way round: every time I go look at the Judo forum (which is generally an excellent place for judo information), there is almost always yet another variation on the theme of "BJJ vs Judo." I only rarely see that discussion on BJJ forums.